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BBC: Top Gear Tesla didn't run out of juice

'We showed what would happen if it did'

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'Leccy Tech The BBC has admitted that the silver Tesla Roadster driven by Jeremy Clarkson on this past weekend's Top Gear didn't run out of juice and didn't need to be pushed home.

However, the Corporation said it stood by the results of its test of the 'leccy sports car.

A spokeswoman for the popular motoring show confirmed to Register Hardware - as Tesla's head of spin, Rachel Konrad, recently claimed - throughout the test, the show was never without a working Tesla.

"They never had to push a car off the track because of lack of charge or a fault," Konrad wrote earlier this week. "It’s unclear why they were pushing one into a garage in the video; I’ll refrain from speculating about their motives."

Now we can reveal the answer: according to the Top Gear spokeswoman, the tested Tesla was filmed being pushed into the shed in order to show what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge.

"Top Gear stands by the findings in this film and is content that it offers a fair representation of the Tesla's performance on the day it was tested," the BBC said in statement.

Of course, Tesla probably shouldn't be too upset by any of this as said findings where predominantly favourable. When it thrashed a Lotus Elise - the car on which the Roadster is based - in a drag race, Clarkson announced that the "volt-head had beaten the petrol-head" and it was "snowing in hell".

We'll also be surprised if his comment about the Roadster being "broadband motoring" doesn't end up in Tesla's PR at some point down the line. In the hands of Top Gear's "tame racing driver", the Stig, the Roadster completed a lap of the Top Gear track in exactly the same time as Porsche 911 GT3, and that is not a slow car. ®